Rep. John Sweeney - Wife Gets a Cut of Campaign Donations

So now we have a pretty good idea why the Dept. of Justice was examining Rep John Sweeney's financial records. It seems Rep. Sweeney paid his wife a commission of 10% for campaign fundraising. This is the same thing Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) has been doing with his wife. Rep. Doolittle's wife also had Jack Abramoff as a client. Neither of the Representative wives had any fundraising experience prior to working for their husbands campaign. This 'commission' technique means that the Sweeneys personally benefit from every campaign donation.

From the Albany Times Union last year:

A relative newcomer to the practice of hiring relatives is U.S. Rep. John Sweeney, R-Clifton Park, whose campaign paid $42,570 to Creative Consulting, a firm owned by his wife, Gayle Ford, between April 2003 and January 2004.

Sweeney's filings list payments to Creative Consulting for fund-raising consulting and commissions. Creative Consulting is Sweeney's 10th-largest campaign expense.

Read more here.